All that is Solid … is a radical blog that seeks to promote a future beyond capital's social universe. "All that is solid melts into air" (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 'The Communist Manifesto', 1848).

CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AND EDUCATION IN SWEDEN: A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF REVOLUTION IN A SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

By Alpesh Maisuria

Senior Lecturer at the University of East London, Cass School of Education & Communities, United Kingdom

Routledge (December 2017)

OUTLINE:

Emerging from a Marxist perspective, this book focuses on the importance of social class and the role of education broadly in relation to the possibility of revolutionary change in Sweden and beyond. Critically tracing the celebrated so-called ‘Swedish model’ from its inception to its current neoliberalisation, Maisuria explores the contours of class as part of social democratic history, culture and education, especially against the alternatives of communism and fascism. Presenting empirical research on class consciousness within a higher education context, Maisuria analyses student testimonies on their perceptions of social democracy and ‘Swedishness’ with ethno-racial dynamics, which is subjected to a Gramscian and Critical Realist derived explanatory critique for social transformation

The effort to issue The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg (issued by Verso Books) has reached a critical phase, and we appeal for your help in enabling future volumes to be published.

The Complete Works was inaugurated in March 2011 with the 600-page Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, the largest collection of her correspondence ever published in English. Volume I of the Complete Works, entitled Economic Writings 1, was published in 2013 and contains the first full English translation of one of her most important books, Introduction to Political Economy, as well as eight newly-discovered manuscripts on anthropology, economic history, and the theory of crises. Volume II, entitled Economic Writings 2, was published in 2015 and contains a new translation of The Accumulation of Capital and the Anti-Critique.

We are now raising funds to cover the costs of translation of her Political Writings, beginning with three volumes (Vols. 3, 4 and 5) devoted to “On Revolution.” They will contain all of her writings on the 1905-06 Russian Revolution, 1917 Russian Revolution, and 1918-19 German Revolution. These reveal Luxemburg at her finest—as a fierce supporter of revolutionary democracy, with a sensitive grasp of spontaneous freedom struggles as well as of non-hierarchical forms of organization. Many of these writings—a large number of them translated from Polish—have never appeared in print since their initial publication, and most have never before appeared in English.

The Complete Works will make her entire body of work available for the first time in any language. All of the writings will be newly translated, with the highest level of scholarly editing. But we cannot continue to commission translations without your support. We need to raise an additional $35,000 to help pay for the translation costs of the next three volumes.

Frantz Fanon (1926-61) is widely considered one of the most important anti-colonial theorists of the twentieth century. Today we are witnessing a resurgence of interest in his contributions to philosophy, psychology and revolutionary theory in light of such realities as persistent racial discrimination in the West, the rise of religious fundamentalism, and the social crises enveloping much of the developing world. This talk will re-examine Fanon’s contributions to ongoing debates over race, racism, and recognition in light of the intellectual sources that motivated much of his work—especially Marxist theory and Hegelian philosophy.

Peter Hudis is author of Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades (Pluto Press, 2015) and Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism (Brill, 2012). He has edited or co-edited numerous works, including The Power of Negativity: Selected Writings on the Dialectic of Hegel and Marx, by Raya Dunayevskaya (Lexington, 1992) and The Rosa Luxemburg Reader (Monthly Review Books, 2006). He is currently general editor of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, which will make all of her work available in 14 volumes (3 volumes have appeared so far). He is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Oakton Community College in the U.S.
Sunday 13th March 2016

News and Letters Committees is proud to announce that the Archives of the Marxist-Humanist philosopher/revolutionary, Raya Dunayevskaya (1910-1987), are now available online.

The Collection encompasses the body of ideas of Marxist-Humanism developed by Dunayevskaya during a lifetime in the revolutionary movement. Its over 17,000 pages are a resource for students, researchers and activists in fields as diverse as philosophy, women’s studies, social theory, intellectual history and Black studies.

Among the writings, many unavailable in printed form, are pioneering studies on the theory of state-capitalism, English-language translations of the young Marx and Lenin’s Hegel Notebooks, extensive notes on Hegel’s major philosophic works, writings on Black struggles in the U.S. from the 1940s to the 1980s, Political-Philosophic Letters on events spanning the world as they were occurring—from the Cuban Missile Crisis through the Iranian Revolution to the coup in Grenada. A far-reaching Battle of Ideas with other Marxists is found in the comprehensive collection of her columns, which first appeared in the newspaper she founded, News & Letters.

The vast preparatory materials for her three major books Marxism and Freedom, Philosophy and Revolution, and Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution are included, as are her extensive preliminary writings for her unfinished book on “Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy.”

This issue of New Formations will propose a rethinking of the legacy of revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg in the twenty-first century. In particular, essays included in the issue will draw on Luxemburg’s writings in order to address pressing issues of the contemporary world. At a time when neoliberal policies strengthen the smooth running of imperialist dispossession and continue to break the oppressed classes through new forms of precariat, debt, marginalisation, militarism and impoverishment, Luxemburg’s inheritance seems to acquire an unexpected poignancy. Luxemburg’s uncompromising commitment to socialism as only alternative to the violence of capitalism can inspire engaged movements fighting social justice in many contexts of the globe. In particular, the issue will focus on Luxemburg’s reflections on imperialism as the forcing of trade relations with non-capitalist surroundings as antidote to the ‘standstill of accumulation’ inherent to the unfolding of capitalism’s history.

Theories of imperialism through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have contended with Luxemburg’s proposition by emphasising its limitations, errors and blind-spots. Yet, do Luxemburg’s theories on imperialism retain any meaning or validity in a postcolonial era? Can Luxemburg’s legacy help redefine the struggle against contemporary forms of neoliberalism, imperialism and accumulation? Can a debate on Luxemburg shed light on the meaning of the postcolonial as historical category and its political and social implications? Can Luxemburg’s thought help to redefine the meaning of social engagement today? The twenty-first century seems to confirm Rosa Luxemburg’s prediction that capitalism would be incapable of becoming universal without damaging the environments, societies and forms of life that are necessary for its reproduction. Contemporary wars, ecological crises, social unrest and the violence of neoliberal economy testify to the paradox that Luxemburg examined in her work: the full domination of capitalism on the planet would correspond to a scenario verging on total destruction and hence the breakdown of capitalism itself. According to Rosa Luxemburg, this ‘barbaric’ aspect of capitalism requires the re-opening of history through active revolutionary intervention.

Confirmed contributors

Stephen Morton

Paul LeBlanc

Peter Hudis

Helen Scott

Rory Castle

Filippo Menozzi

Kanishka Chowdhury

Rosa Luxemburg

We welcome contributions from all disciplines. Final essays will be expected to be 7,000-9,000 words in length.

Marxism 2014 – 10-14 July, 2014, central London1914-2014: A century of war, crisis and revolution: what are the alternatives today?
Website: http://www.marxismfestival.org.uk/

Marxism 2014 is a five day political festival bringing together thousands of activists, trade unionists, students, writers and academics. There are around 200 meetings on everything from climate change to the Egyptian revolution. The world economic turmoil continues, the police have a licence to kill, immigrants are being scapegoated, and the whole welfare state is under attack. There has never been a greater need to discuss alternatives to a world in a crisis.

Left Forum is the largest annual conference in the United States of the broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, organizations and the interested public. Each year thousands of conference participants come together in New York City to discuss pressing local, national and global issues; to better understand commonalities and differences, and alternatives to current predicaments; or to share ideas to help build social movements to transform the world. This year’s theme is “Reform and/or Revolution: Imagining a World with Transformative Justice.” Panels can be proposed until the deadline of April 27th.

Confronted with a global context of austerity, exploitation, imperialist aggression, ongoing colonialism, and ecological crises, the world has been witness to growing social and political struggles over the past decade. A wide range of rural- and urban-based labour and social movements have fought back against the current ‘Age of Austerity,’ while new modes and geographies of resistance against dispossession and tyranny continue to inspire social change in the Global South. Against this backdrop, the 2014 Historical Materialism conference at Toronto’s York University will aim to contribute to a collective discussion on how to extend and revitalize Left critique and praxis in the current conjuncture.

Guy Debord was the most influential figure in the Situationist International, the notorious group that helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. His book “The Society of the Spectacle,” originally published in Paris in 1967, has been translated into more than twenty other languages and is arguably the most important radical book of the twentieth century. This is the first edition in any language to include extensive annotations, clarifying the historical allusions and revealing the sources of Debord’s “détournements.”

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Debord’s book is neither an ivory tower “philosophical” discourse nor a mere expression of “protest.” It is a carefully considered effort to clarify the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the society in which we find ourselves. This makes it more of a challenge, but it is also why it remains so pertinent nearly half a century after its original publication while countless other social theories and intellectual fads have come and gone.

It has, in fact, become even more pertinent than ever, because the spectacle has become more all-pervading than ever — to the point that it is almost universally taken for granted. Most people today have scarcely any awareness of pre-spectacle history, let alone of anti-spectacle possibilities. As Debord noted in his follow-up work, “Comments on the Society of the Spectacle” (1988), “spectacular domination has succeeded in raising an entire generation molded to its laws.”